Patricia Riley
After watching Mr. Escalante in “Stand and Deliver” and Ms.
Watson in “Mona Lisa Smile” I was stuck not only by the similarities of the two
teachers but also by their differences. In Stand and Deliver Mr. Escalante
consistently shows his absolute confidence in his student’s ability to learn
higher math. While they were both good
teachers I think that Mr. Escalante greatly surpassed Ms. Watson with his
dogged persistence in getting his students to the point where they could
somewhat confidently take the Advanced Placement test for Calculus. Ms. Watson goes to teach at Wellesley College
in Eastern Massachusetts with the intention of not only sharing her love of art
with the select group of privileged female students but also of perhaps
bringing some enlightenment to the women
in regards to having more in their lives outside of marriage, children and a
showcase home. They both had a tenacious streak that would
not allow them to give up on their students even though the students sometimes
gave up on themselves.
At the beginning of the movie, Stand and Deliver, Mr.
Escalante arrives at the school to find it in chaos. He is told he will not be teaching computer science
but will be teaching math. Instead of
turning around and quitting he goes to his class and starts to teach. When he meets the all-Hispanic math class it
firms his resolve to make a difference with the students. He sees himself in those kids and wants them
succeed in life and go beyond what society expected of them. In the scene during the first full class session,
Mr. Escalante is trying to spark an interest in the students for math. “It was your ancestors that first
contemplated the zero. The absence of
value. True story. You burros have math
in your blood!”
At the point in the movie where the class is working on a
particularly difficult question, Ana Delgado reveals that that day is her last
as her dad needs her to work at the family restaurant full time. She is obviously sad that she will not be
able to finish high school and realize her dream of going to college. Mr. Escalante does not say anything at that
time but we find him later at the restaurant with his wife having dinner. Ana introduces her father to Mr.
Escalante. After he sits down Mr.
Escalante tells Ana’s father that she should be back in school. He is determined that Mr. Delgado understands
how important it is that Ana return to school.
“She should make her own choices.
She is Top Kid!” He continues to
try to get Mr. Delgado to see the advantages of Ana continuing her education to
the point where he practically told to leave.
He does leave, probably thinking that he will never see Ana again but is
obviously delighted to see her soon return to his class.
When the class finally takes the Advanced Placement test for
Calculus after months of studying and even giving up their summer for
additional tutoring they all pass with exceptional scores. After being told that they have achieved
their goal it is viciously taken from them when suspicion arises that there was
cheating involved. This proved to be yet
another example of Mr. Escalante’s firm belief in his student’s ability, and
honesty for that matter. He defends them
even to the point of calling out one of the investigators. Mr. Escalante has confronted the two
investigators, Mr. Ramirez and Mr. Pearson.
After a rather intense verbal altercation, Mr. Ramirez says that “this
is not between you and me”. “Maybe not,”
responds Mr. Escalante, “but if I catch you on the street I am gonna kick the
shit out of you.”
Ms. Watson displays her own type of tenaciousness in “Mona
Lisa Smile” when dealing with the superior behavior of her students the first
time she meets them. When she begins her
slide show of well-known works of art and hopes to amaze them with her
knowledge, she is somewhat put out when the students recite all the details about
each piece of artwork. She is in fact, a
bit humiliated, but instead of tucking her tail between her legs and fleeing in
embarrassment she compiles a new set of slides.
This set of slides, shown during the following class, are of then modern
day advertisements showing women doing what society decided should be their
role in the life – housework, and a quite vulgar painting by Soutine titled “The
Carcass” The students don’t know
anything about the Soutine painting but
instead of gloating, Ms. Watson proceeds to teach the women how to look at art
from a different perspective, perhaps from the angle of the artist and why
he/she painted it instead of the surface appreciation one feels when looking at
works of art. She continues in this way and it pays off for
her when the students begin to engage in more meaningful dialogue. “Is it any good?” challenges Ms. Watson “Come
on ladies. There is no textbook to tell
you what to think!” This generates quite
a stimulating discussion that signals the beginning of a new perspective of not
only art but the roles that women have been cast into.
Another example of how tenacious Ms. Watson could be is not
necessarily an admirable one. She asks
Joan Brandwyn what her intentions were regarding furthering her education after
graduation. When Joan says that she has
thought about law school, Ms. Watson takes matters into her own hands and
obtains an application for Yale Law School and gives it to Joan on the sly. After she found out that Joan was getting
married to a young man who was attending college in Philadelphia she researched
law schools in that area and even brought the college catalogs and applications
to Joan’s parents’ home. On that occasion
she discovered that Joan and her fiancé had eloped the night before and that
she (Joan) did not want to be a lawyer.
She wanted to be a wife and mother. “You tell us to look beyond the
image but you don’t.” Joan ardently defended herself. “To you a housewife is someone who sold her
soul for a center-hall Colonial. She has
no depth, no intellect, no interests. You are the one who said I could be
anything I wanted. This is what I want.”
Initially Ms. Watson found that hard to
understand, that Joan or any woman for that matter, would actually want to be a
homemaker and not have a career of her own but she soon realized that Joan was
firm in her convictions and she graciously congratulated her.
At the end of the school year, Ms. Watson is invited back
for the next academic year but with several unreasonable preconditions. She declines and takes that opportunity to do
something she has only dreamed of – traveling to Italy to see the works of the
great artists that she teaches about. As she is being driven away from the school
in a taxi, the women whom she had taught for the past year follow on their
bicycles, openly showing their love and admiration for her and for all the
windows and doors she had opened for them.
Betty Warren’s final column conveys the depth of respect that she
finally feels for Ms. Watson. “I have
heard her called a quitter for leaving. An aimless wanderer. But not all that wander are aimless. Especially not those who seek the truth
beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond image. We will never forget you”
Mr. Escalante and Ms. Watson were both very tenacious teachers and I suspect that that tenacity went beyond their professional lives and contributed to a fulfilling life in so many ways. They both wanted the best for their students,
for their students to realize their own abilities and push beyond that. They taught their respective subjects from
the heart, knowing that they had the opportunity to make a positive difference in
even just one life. Their differences lay perhaps in their
motivation for teaching. Mr. Escalante
has a genuine love of math and an understanding of where his students are
from. He knows how to talk to them
because he is from the same background.
He also gives his students the respect they are due as human
beings. That respect is not apparent
from the rest of the staff. Ms. Watson
on the other hand is not from the same background as her students and I don’t
think she truly understands that although some of the women are merely following
the path that their families have laid out for them, some of them actually want
to go down that particular road. She is
a bit more progressive than they are used to at Wellesley but she does, in the
end, accomplish what she had set out to do, what she told her students early in the movie, “Look
beyond the paint.”
No comments:
Post a Comment